The Ghost eBook

“How so?” said Alresca in a curious whisper.
“I have nothing to keep from you, my dear child.”

“Yes,” she said, “you are keeping
something from me. This afternoon you told Sir
Cyril that you were expecting a misfortune. Well,
the misfortune has occurred to you. How did you
guess that it was coming? Then, to-night, as
they were carrying you away on that stretcher, do
you remember what you said?”

“What did I say?”

“You remember, don’t you?” Rosa
faltered.

“I remember,” he admitted. “But
that was nonsense. I didn’t know what I
was saying. My poor Rosa, I was delirious.
And that is just why I wished to see you—­in
order to explain to you that that was nonsense.
You must forget what I said. Remember only that
I love you.”

("So Emmeline was right,” I reflected.)

Abruptly Rosa stood up.

“You must not love me, Alresca,” she said
in a shaking voice. “You ask me to forget
something; I will try. You, too, must forget
something—­your love.”

“But last night,” he cried, in accents
of an almost intolerable pathos—­“last
night, when I hinted—­you did not—­did
not speak like this, Rosetta.”

I rose. I had surely no alternative but to separate
them. If I allowed the interview to be prolonged
the consequences to my patient might be extremely
serious. Yet again I hesitated. It was the
sound of Rosa’s sobbing that arrested me.

Once more she dropped to her knees.

“Alresca!” she moaned.

He seized her hand and kissed it.

And then I came forward, summoning all my courage
to assert the doctor’s authority. And in
the same instant Alresca’s features, which had
been the image of intense joy, wholly changed their
expression, and were transformed into the embodiment
of fear. With a look of frightful terror he pointed
with one white hand to the blank wall opposite.
He tried to sit up, but the splint prevented him.
Then his head fell back.

“It is there!” he moaned. “Fatal!
My Rosa—­”

The words died in his mouth, and he swooned.

As for Rosetta Rosa, I led her from the room.

CHAPTER IV

ROSA’S SUMMONS

Everyone knows the Gold Rooms at the Grand Babylon
on the Embankment. They are immense, splendid,
and gorgeous; they possess more gold leaf to the square
inch than any music-hall in London. They were
designed to throw the best possible light on humanity
in the mass, to illuminate effectively not only the
shoulders of women, but also the sombreness of men’s
attire. Not a tint on their walls that has not
been profoundly studied and mixed and laid with a view
to the great aim. Wherefore, when the electric
clusters glow in the ceiling, and the “after-dinner”
band (that unique corporation of British citizens
disguised as wild Hungarians) breathes and pants out
its after-dinner melodies from the raised platform
in the main salon, people regard this coup d’oeil
with awe, and feel glad that they are in the dazzling
picture, and even the failures who are there imagine
that they have succeeded. Wherefore, also, the
Gold Rooms of the Grand Babylon are expensive, and
only philanthropic societies, plutocrats, and the
Titans of the theatrical world may persuade themselves
that they can afford to engage them.